Los moriscos que no salieron

Abstract

As we commemorate the fourth-hundredth anniversary of the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, it is inevitable that most attention has focused on those who were actually expelled. However, there were two other groups of Moriscos also aff ected by the decrees of expulsion but who suff ered a quite different experience: first, there were those who were never expelled, who, for a variety of reasons, managed to remain in their towns and villages; and secondly, there were those who were expelled but managed to return to Spain, some more than once. Although neither group matched those expelled in terms of actual numbers, they nonetheless constituted various thousands of Moriscos, perhaps as many as 40% of the total, who stayed on in Spain beyond the period of the expulsions and merged over time into the general population so that they were eventually forgotten about. We should not, however, forget about them in these years of commemoration, as their story of survival and return is a vital part of the wider Morisco story.